Cell Culture

Cell culture is the term given to the method by which cells are grown outside of their natural environment in a laboratory setting.

Cell culture is not a new technique. The first paper which described the modern usage and techniques of cell culture was published in 1907.

Cells can be isolated from tissues for ex vivo culture in several ways. Two of the most common include releasing cells from soft tissues by enzymatic digestion, and directly placing sections of tissue in growth media, the resulting cell proliferation can then be used to seed further culture.

Cells that are cultured directly from a subject are known as primary cell cultures. With a few exceptions, most primary cell cultures have a limited lifespan. The cells stop dividing and lose viability which is why researchers are always looking to obtain fresh tissue/cells for their research.

Cells grown in this way usually form a flat sheet of cells (monolayer) on the plastic support on which the cells are placed. This type of cell culture, where the cells grow to form a flat sheet, is known as 2D (2-dimensional) cell culture. Modern techniques now allow cells to adopt a more ‘natural’ 3D shape and these new cultures are known as 3D cell culture.

3D cell culture techniques allow cells to survive in a more natural environment similar to the physiological conditions that there would be in a human tissue.

Another advancement on traditional culture is the co-culture system. This is mainly done in 3D systems and is where more than one cell type are grown together. Most human tissue contains more than one cell type and so these modern 3D co-culture systems are much closer to the human body than ever before.

Managing cells

Cells require a lot of help and support to keep them alive and functioning as close as they would in an in vivo situation. Cells are kept and worked with under sterile conditions to avoid microbial contamination or contamination with other cell lines.

Use of cell culture

Cell culture systems have many applications. Primarily, cell culture is used to understand the fundamental changes that occur to cells and tissues in disease states. Additionally, these same systems can be used to determine whether the cells or tissues under investigation respond to drugs or other treatments.

Cell culture is also useful in producing drugs, vaccines or other biological materials useful in human medicine and scientific research.

Cell culture as an alternative to animal experiments

Cell culture is a popular alternative to animal experiments as the cells under study can be closely observed and the environment monitored in order to be able to get the most useful and human-relevant data possible although they do have their own set of limitations.

For many years scientists have been developing both 2D and 3D cellular models of various diseases. Animal Free Research UK in particular has been at the forefront of this research, with some of our first cell culture projects being funded in the early 1980s. Animal Free Research UK funded its first 3D cell culture project in 2004 which looked at developing the first ever 3D model of breast cancer.

Cell culture has come a long way from its humble beginning and is now seen as one of the primary ways in which to develop an alternative to animal experiments and alleviate the suffering experienced by hundreds of thousands of animals every year.

1 in 8 women in the UK will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. In partnership with Breast Cancer UK we want to raise £90,000 to fund an innovative research project that will help us to prevent the disease in more people in the future.

We rely on our amazing fundraisers to raise funds in their community to fund our ground-breaking and innovative animal free research. Our fundraising groups across the UK are the perfect place to share fundraising and volunteering ideas, network with other supporters in your area, organise fundraising events and meet up. Find a group near you.

Related

The Home Office today announced the latest numbers on the scientific procedures performed on live animals in Great Britain in 2016. The total number of procedures performed went down from 2015 by 5% to 3.94 million procedures. This included 4,932 procedures on 3,530 dogs, 3,569 procedures on 2,440 primates. 3.87 million animals were used overall.

Stem cells are unspecialised cells that have the extraordinary potential to either proliferate through mitosis to produce more stem cells or to differentiate, under certain physiological or experimental conditions, into more specialised cells such as brain or muscle cells.

This research on schwannomas and meningiomas used a unique human cell culture model using cells derived from surgical patients. This has led to the identification and testing of new, targeted therapies and the team have successfully translated their research into early clinical trials. This approach has allowed them to screen approved drugs directly and go straight into clinical trials, avoiding pre-clinical animal trials.

Every year, 8% of the population will be diagnosed with chronic pain but only two-thirds will recover. By collecting human nerve stem cells from discarded human teeth, this project will increase our understanding of how inflammation affects the nerve cells in the face and how this can lead to chronic pain, whilst replacing the use of animals.

This pioneering work with the Thiel embalming method will help to teach doctors potentially life-saving surgical interventions such as advanced abdominal aortic stent graft repair without the need to practice these methods on animals such as pigs. Heart, stroke, kidney and liver patients are among those who will benefit directly from the training clinicians will undergo.

In 2015, the number of animals used for the first time in procedures for scientific purposes was 4.07 million (4,069,349). The number of procedures that were conducted on animals is slightly higher at 4.14 million (4,142,631). These numbers, over the past few years have remained fairly similar with both the number of animals used and the number of procedures conducted hovering around the 4 million mark consistently.

The ARC, at the Blizard Institute QMUL, will provide a unique environment for scientists to work together to develop human-based models of skin, breast and prostate cancer, replacing mouse models. It also aims to inspire the next generation of scientists through education about animal free research.

In 2015, the number of animals used for the first time in procedures for scientific purposes was 4.07 million (4,069,349). The number of procedures that were conducted on animals is slightly higher at 4.14 million (4,142,631). These numbers, over the past few years have remained fairly similar with both the number of animals used and the number of procedures conducted hovering around the 4 million mark consistently.

With your help, we can free animals from laboratories for good.Our work is funded entirely by your generous support. Your donation helps to fund some of the most advanced and successful human-related techniques in many areas of medical research including cancer, Alzheimer's, asthma, heart and liver disease.

The use of animals in experimentation and testing in the UK is regulated under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, known as ASPA. This Act states the legal provisions that have been created for the protection of animals used for experimental or other scientific purposes.